MAJOR PARENTING WHINE/VENT.....

After reading Tex's latest article, Minivan Confessions, I admit to being somewhat relieved.  Why?  I'm not alone!  And because every year at this time my kids seem to get cranky.  Not just a here and there crankiness, but an honest to goodness "what will it be today?" foulness.

My twelve year old doesn't want to do anything but play on his computer.  Part of it is laziness.  I love him, but am not blind to his tendency to be lazy.  Part of it is because school starts in 2 1/2 weeks and he's not allowed to game during the school week.  There is just too much homework, and general busy-ness to make time for gaming.  So he is trying to squeeze every minute of fun he can out of sitting on his butt gaming.  And his recent weight gain proves it.

Most of it tho, laziness.

Nothing else matters.  And WOE to the person who pulls him away from gaming.  For instance, we have a canoe.  We are an outdoor family, always have been.  Except for my 12 year old who recently informed me there is "nothing to be gained from being outside.  It benefits me in no way."  This from the kid I had to force inside at dark most of his life.  But I digress. 

Saturday morning we get the kids up and head out to a little used section of the Little Miami River (where the fishing is fab, but the actual canoing uh, not so much).  I told Hunter to put on some sandals because the river is low and we will have to port.  (Don't know if that's an official word, but its one we use when hitting a log jam or something in the river which requires us to leave the water and carry the canoe to a spot further down river, where we can re-enter the water.)

Well guess what?  Hunter doesn't have any sandals, or anything other than tennis shoes.  Why?  Because when we did summer shoe shopping he refused to come with us.  (He has wide feet and must try on shoes, even crocks because the size I think will fit perfect, never does.)  Said his shoes were fine, he didn't like sandals.  I figured, ok I'll let him live with the consequences of the decision.  Let his feet sweat.

So all he has are tennis shoes, and with the recent growth spurt only one pair that fits.  Now I could let him wear them, but I know the mud on the river.  There is no way they'll work.  So we scrounge for some river shoes, and he ends up wearing a pair of mine.  But he is so freakin lazy he just shoves his feet in them, heel hanging out, without zipping them up.

He also plays the "I don't know what to do" game when we make him do family activities.  While porting, he just walked aimlessly, slowly in front of us, while my husband and I were carrying the canoe telling him to hurry it up.  When my husband told him to grab on and help, he slouches and says "Where?"

Carrying a heavy ass canoe through needle like plants, and watching a kid as big as I am stand around and be useless, set my temper off.  He can SEE what needs to be done, but since he doesn't really want to be there, refuses to acknowledge it.  And when my husband calls him on it, tells him to grab hold for instance, he acts like a three year old..gives us "I don't know how" eyes and then just gets in the way.

It was not a good day on the river.

I won't even discuss how we have to lift the canoe over our heads to put on top of the minivan....and how Hunter gets IN THE VAN to wait while we do it.  And how much yelling from his dad is required to get him to even look like he's helping.

A part of me wants to leave him home from now on.  He's ruined the last several family outings for everyone.  And at the end of the day I want to strangle him.

I did enjoy the part where he sank in KNEE high mud and it sucked the shoes he was too lazy to zip, right off his feet.  Maybe that's mean, but hey, the kid was asking for that and so much more.  Of course he didn't even try to get rinsed off before getting into the canoe.  That ratcheted up my husband's blood pressure.

Another example?  Yesterday.  It was almost noon and Hunter was still in bed.  My husband and I disagree on letting kids sleep in.  I feel if they are tired, let them sleep.  What does it hurt?  They're growing and their bodies will wake up when they've rested enough.  Besides he's on summer break.  Right?  Weeellll...

My husband says there is no reason for Hunter to be sleeping so late.  He goes to bed in the summer no later than 12:30 and shouldn't still be in bed at noon.  He thinks Hunter should be up and about and GET USED TO IT, because it will help prepare him for the rest of his life.  (And I do agree with that but still think I am right too.)

I am at home with them during the week so I let him sleep.  He IS growing.  He's grown over five inches in the last four months!  I go to his room and told him "ten minutes to brush your teeth and get ready.  We're taking a picnic lunch to the state park, then going on the hiking trail."

He started bitching and moaning because he wants to spend every minute playing video games.  I walked away.

We loaded up, him sulking, and went to the park.  We had lunch, which he didn't like.  I tried to talk to him about why exercise is important.  He gave me attitude and said he doesn't care if he's fat, if he's out of shape, who cares?  "Who cares how I look?"  was his mantra.

When I explained about cholesterol, diabetes, he replied, "I don't care if I have those things."  I told him they lead to death...he said, "So?  It's not like I'm going to die today.  Look at all the fat adults around.  I'll live to be that old at least."

On and on.

We started out on the trail.  It's beautiful.  All forest, trees, and the river gurgling, animals, and lots of huge boulders that make caves.  All that to enjoy?  No.  Hunter wouldn't shut up.  He picked fights with me, and when it didn't work, with his brother.  He argued and complained the entire first hour.  When I'd had enough and screamed at him to shut up, totally destroying the tranquility of nature, heh.  I decided we needed to head back before I left him to the wolves or beat him with my handy walking stick.  So we turned around for the hour hike back to the parking area.

There was no winning.  Gavin then started complaining.  Seeing as we were heading back and the fun was almost over he decided he was "tired" and "couldn't walk another step."  But, could we stop and play at the park on the way home?  Yeah, real tired.

All the way back I thought, My god, I have two ungrateful, self absorbed, and one seriously lazy kid. 

To top it all off, when we got back to the van Hunter took the last bottle of water out of the cooler and drank it.  That's no big deal except he only took two drinks of water from the bottle at lunch and it was still good.  But no, it wasn't cold, screw everyone else in the family, he wanted the last one and he took it.

My husband has wanted to really crack down on Hunter.  Meaning, make him suffer and sweat and learn to "be a man." haha.  But I tried to buffer that because my husband is a bit of an authoritarian.  He thinks his children should "hop too" like his troops at work.  If he says it, he wants it done NOW.  No quibbling.  No bad attitude.  No nonsense.  JUST DO IT AND LIKE IT!

Now, after the last few weeks (these are only two examples of many) I think I was wrong to keep my husband from making my son tow the Basic Training Line.

I am about to hand over all the discipline issues/motivation issues whatever you want to call it to my man.

Sulking is fine.  I can and do ignore it.  But outright blatant sabotage of everyone else's good time?  That's going to end.  I guess its about that time of year to take his computer out of his room, remove the games completely until he learns to be a human again.

Gah.

We are going canoing again this weekend.  Can't wait.

Grrrrr.